Ashish Ranjan, an engineering dropout from Patna, still remembers his mother’s last words: “Follow your heart and do what you want. If you don’t want to work under someone, finish your engineering and come back home.”

After his mother’s death, he didn’t feel like completing his engineering degree and dropped out. He wanted to spend time with his father and support him through the tough time. That’s when it all began.

In 2018, Ashish launched ‘Online Cake Bhejo’ (OCB) with his friend Buddhisen Bittu. Their goal was simple: deliver cakes across Patna by sourcing from local bakeries.

However, persistent quality issues became a challenge. Ashish questioned, "I would never serve poor-quality cakes at home — how could I serve that to someone else's child?"

Determined to provide healthy, hygienic, and tasty baked goods in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, he shut down operations and went back to the drawing board.

Ashish then found inspiration in the potential of millets and the strength of rural women farmers. He envisioned a bakery that focused on healthy products while empowering village women.

With just Rs 20,000, he started small. Support from the Bihar Startup Policy and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) later enabled him to set up a manufacturing facility with a grant of Rs 10 lakh.

“We hear of home bakers in cities — why not create home bakers in villages?” Ashish asks. This idea led to the formation of ‘She Groups’, a self-help initiative that trains rural women in processing millets, baking cookies, and packaging products.

It’s a mutually beneficial relationship: OCB provides equipment, ensures safety, and connects the women to market channels. The women process millet, bake and pack cookies, and hand them to distributors.

These self-sustaining She Groups have coordinators who manage the distribution of packed products. “They get a livelihood while we get our chefs,” Ashish shares.

OCB's millet-based products include cookies, muffins, brownies, and bread made with nutritious grains like jowar, ragi, bajra, and wheat — completely free from preservatives or artificial colours.

“We worked on perfecting this bread for months on end. It’s not easy to make bread without maida. We use wheat, ragi flour and a pinch of maida to make the bread fluffy. We don’t use any artificial colours to achieve the brown colour,” says Ashish.

OCB now operates 10 outlets — two self-owned, five franchises, and three She Group stores — in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, employing over 50 people.

The startup closed FY 2023-24 with a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore. Going forward, Ashish hopes to create employment opportunities for more female farmers and deliver their products across the country.